Securing cognitive radio networks against belief manipulation attacks via trust management

Cognitive Radio (CR) provides cognitive, self-organizing, and reconfiguration features. When forming a network, namely Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs), these features can further provide network agility and spectrum sharing. On the other hand, they also make the network much more vulnerable than other traditional wireless networks, e.g., ad hoc wireless or sensor networks. In particular, the malicious nodes may exploit the cognitive engine of CRs, and conduct belief manipulation attacks to degrade the network performance. Traditional security methods using cryptography or authentication cannot adequately address these attacks. In this paper, we propose to use trust management for a more robust CRN operation against belief manipulation attacks. Specifically, we first study the effects of malicious behaviors to the network performance, define trust evaluation metrics to capture malicious behaviors, and illustrate how trust management strategy can help to enhance the robustness of network operations in various network configurations.